The worst-kept secret in college basketball is how coaches, sneaker executives, sports agents, travel-team coaches and financial advisers, often through under-the-table payments, steer top high school talent first to NCAA programs and later to apparel brands and professional representation once they enter the NBA.

Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York blew this shadowy world open in ways that have never before been seen, indicting 10 men, including active assistant basketball coaches at Arizona, Auburn, Oklahoma State and USC, plus an executive for adidas, in a widespread case that is sure to rock college basketball to its core.

While only four schools are currently involved, the complaints will provide a treasure map for NCAA investigators as it tells stories of endless payouts and kickbacks in the recruitment of numerous top prospects over the past three years.

Apparently this is illegal because of... bribery and stuff? Because NCAA coaches get federal funding and therefore... unlicensed amphibious rodent... city limits? I don't know.

What I suspect is that everyone named in this investigation is going to flip immediately, because their careers are done either way and ain't nobody going to jail for Rick Pitino. This will spread, and the allegations are seismic for at least one school:

This is unreal, where a U of L coach says "we gotta be very low key" since U of L is already on probation. pic.twitter.com/JfSLiQ5h1G

Is this actually good if you want players paid? In the short term, no. But the more naked the system is, the more clear it is that shoe companies run five-star basketball recruiting, the less tenable the NCAA's position is. Maybe this won't force the schools to offer their own money, but surely at some point the fact that a large majority of the top players are bought has to open the doors to above-the-table third party payments.

"But then boosters and shoe companies will own college basketball," hypothetical argument guy says before realizing that is the status quo.

It was not a dream. PFF All Big Ten teams from last week feature one John O'Korn:

So it wasn't just you. People not desperately invested in the hope John O'Korn provided during the last three quarters of that game also thought he was pretty dang good. Though not as good as Saquon Barkley, which got dang son.

Poor Damn DJ Durkin. Maryland QB Kasim Hill is out for the season, following on the heels of Piggy Pigrome getting knocked out in the Texas game. Caleb Henderson is still out with some sort of foot thing, so fourth-stringer Max Bortenschlager played most of the game against UCF, which was a terrible defeat. Incredibly, this is not the first time Durkin has had to turn to a fourth-stringer who sounds like a shot you'd order at Rick's*. Bortenschlager started the Nebraska game last year, a 28-7 loss.

Things were even worse in 2012—when Maryland lost five QBs, one to transfer and four to injury, eventually moving a freshmnan LB to the spot—and 2015, when four different guys played, one of whom subsequently became a linebacker.

This one sucks more than those because Durkin had just racked up a statement win at Texas and the Terrapins looked like they were on their way to... 8-4? Now they're going to be scratching out bowl eligibility. But at least they've got this going for them:

*[I imagine? I never went, and when I tell people this 50% of them say I am very smart and 50% say I am very dumb. Anyway, a MAX BORTENSCHLAGER is 1/3rd Everclear, 1/3 Goldschlager, and 1/3 BORT, which is... Swedish port? Yeah.

I think I just invented the world's worst drink.]

Taking those bullets for us. Michigan had three head-to-head recruiting battles with Texas for 2016 kids that they lost: Jordan Elliott, Jean Delance, and Chris Daniels. With Daniels's just-announced departure, all three of those guys have left Austin in just over a year. Michigan filled in the DT slot with Mike Dwumfour, who's emerging into a rotation piece on a top-five defense in year two.

"There's only two eligible players that are allowed to leave in the pro game before the ball is punted," Harbaugh said."In college, anybody can leave before the ball is punted. It's a player-safety (issue), to have 10 players converging on a punt returner. A defenseless player is not what we want in our game."

That change has long been advocated here, not for player safety issues but boring thing issues. NFL rules would create more returns and fewer fair catches.

Graham Glasgow, still Graham Glasgow. Ain't no party like a Glasgow party because everyone's standing next to the wall nursing a drink and making ham-fisted attempts at a flicker of human interaction before retreating into a shell of fear and self-loathing WOOOO:

.@ShowtimeTate: "We're going to try to involve him next time. Poor Graham. He just wants to be included."

When watching defenders, it's important not to get completely caught up in box score stats. A great example of this came three years ago, when Ohio State defensive end Joey Bosa finished his final college season with modest sack totals, but constantly graded out as one of the most impact-making defenders in the country due to his presence on the field and what he was able to force.

Impact plays. For a player like Bush, this can mean many things. A sack, a pass break-up, a forced fumble, an interception, a quarterback pressure, an effort play that results in a zero rush or tackle for loss. Against Purdue on Saturday, I counted 13 impact plays for Michigan's inside linebacker.

Thirteen.

I'd like to see a few more stats get standardized, like QB hits and hurries, to better quantify those results.

Break out the flag: Michigan's top 2018 hoops target, four-star Canadian wing Ignas "Iggy" Brazdeikis, committed to the Wolverines on Friday night.

“It’s just a perfect fit for me,” Brazdeikis said.

“Even when I was just getting into basketball, Michigan was like a dream school for me,” Brazdeikis added. “It was the first school I knew about. I used to watch them play on TV and look at them and I could always see myself playing for them. Now that the opportunity is here, it’s super nice.”

Brazdeikis is an Ontario native and, yes, he knows Nik Stauskas, who was pleased by the news.

Congrats to my brother @_iggy_7 on his commitment to the University of Michigan! Kill time! #GoBlue

Brazdeikis is the fourth commit in Michigan's 2018 class, joining four-star PF Brandon Johns, four-star PG David DeJulius, and three-star big man Taylor Currie. John Beilein and his staff now boast the #5-ranked recruiting class in the country.

GURU RATINGS

Scout

Rivals

ESPN

247

247 Comp

4*, #10 SF,
#42 Ovr

4* SF

NR SG

4*, 96, #9 SF,
#45 Ovr

4*, #19 SF,
#83 Ovr

Brazdeikis would have a higher composite ranking if he came from the States. Rivals doesn't put foreign players in their numerical rankings unless they play their high school ball in the US; Brazdeikis is at Orangeville Prep in Ontario. Rivals at least gives him a four-star rating; ESPN doesn't bother to even go that far or provide a scouting report.

Meanwhile, the other two sites have him as a top-50 player, and Rivals's Eric Bossi said Brazdeikis would be in the top 40 if they were to rank him. Don't be fooled by the composite ranking; Brazdeikis is closer to fringe five-star status than fringe top-100 status. Endless Motor ranks him as the #29 overall prospect in the class.

A major reason Brazdeikis is so well-regarded is his size: he's listed at 6'8", 220 pounds by every site save Rivals (6'8", 200), but he possesses the offensive skill-set of a shooting guard or small forward.

THIS ARTICLE HAS A SPONSOR: If you haven’t yet met the guy on the right, that’s Nick Hopwood, our MGoFinancial Planner from Peak Wealth Management. Since I made MGoBlog my career I’ve acquired a spouse, a house, and two kids, and a ton of questions about our financial future.

So I talk to Nick. In turn, Nick—who’s been reading this site since nearly the beginning—has a lot of questions about Michigan. So the deal is we go to him for financial strategies, and he gets to ask us Michigan questions. These we’ll answer in whatever format works: This Week’s Obsession, What Is, Neck Sharpies, Basketbullets, whatever. Anytime it’s a Nick question, we’ll let you know. Anytime you’ve got a financial question, let Nick know. And while you’re at it, if you also have Michigan question you’d like to be given the full MGoBlog treatment, well, Nick’s buying!

--------------------------------

Nick’s First Question:

Does Michigan have a new quarterback?

[Patrick Barron]

BiSB: This is a bit of an Allegory of the Cave situation. We only see a small fraction of the available evidence, and we see it with only a fractional understanding of what should be happening. The coaches have much more information about both of these guys, and they clearly thought - right up until the moment he was origami'd by that Purdue defender - was that Speight was better. So I don't think I'm even qualified to guess in this situation, though that has never stopped me in the past.

My blind-ass prediction is that he gets the start against MSU, and his performance in the first game or two determines what happens when Speight is 100%. Two things I will mention in favor of the premise of the dawning of the O'Korn Era. The first relates to a name that hasn't been mentioned much recently: Colin Kaepernick. Alex Smith missed a start because of a concussion, and he never got his job back. The second point, which is related to the first one, is that O'Korn has the kind of mobility that Harbaugh has traditionally enjoyed with his quarterbacks. If he can extend that mobility to include mobility in the pocket the way he flashed against Purdue, I think he has a good shot to keep the job.

A defensively dominant trip to Indiana came at a high cost: team leader and sideline-to-sideline playmaker Eric Mayes [Heather Stone/Detroit News]

There’s a saying in football: good teams make it through the season without a major injury, great ones overcome them. In an otherwise rote blowout of an overmatched team, the Wolverines suffered a blow in a spot they weren’t supposed to be able to afford. Their captain and defensive leader would leave the stadium in a golf cart; the team would depart with a firm identity as a dominant defense, and a far better idea of what kind of offense they were capable of scratching out.

After winning out in the non-conference schedule, Michigan opened up Big Ten play with a trip to Indiana to face a program trying to climb out of a deep hole by hiring an offensive whiz with a penchant for trick plays.

First-year coach Cam Cameron, the same guy who was a UM assistant under Bo and Mo in the mid-80’s and early 90’s, was now the head guy at his alma mater. He vowed to make changes and bring Hoosier Football “back” to the not too distant period of 8-win seasons and bowl games under another scion of Bo, Bill Mallory.

Cam wasn’t going to hang his hat on history: he even re-designed their uniforms to look like the team that embodied success at the highest level back then. As the Hoosiers dressed for their Homecoming game against Michigan they looked an awful lot like the Bill Walsh San Francisco 49’ers; underneath they were still the same Hoosiers. Whereas Michigan under third-year head coach Lloyd Carr was trying to avoid a third disappointing 8-4 season in a row, Indiana’s definition of hope meant getting back to that same level.

Carr revealed a uniform tweak of his own against Indiana. For the first time in 20 years, Michigan changed the look of the road white jerseys. The triple stripe sleeve was now reduced to two solid, thicker maize and blue stripes with a block M (last seen in 1968) above them. The v-neck collar also sported a maize and blue trim as did the numbers. To the blue-hairs back then, it was an unnecessary change that didn’t go over very well. To the youth of the day, it was applauded. Imagine that?

“If we were playing a game this week he wouldn’t be able to play and we’ll assess it as we go.

“Somebody asked me—Angelique?—what I thought of the play. After having seen it now, I thought it was egregious. If I had a stronger word to use I would use it. With all the emphasis on protecting defenseless players, it appeared that the player knew what he was doing, targeted the head and neck area when the player was on the ground, and accelerated into it. Surprised they had two officials standing back there that were both looking at it, plus a review in the press box, that that wasn’t a targeting, that wasn’t a personal foul.”

Is that something that you contact the Big Ten about? There were other hits in that game, too.

“Yeah, yeah. We will contact them.”

What do you get when you do contact them?

“You get a piece of paper back that says they agree or disagree and has a short explanation.”

So it doesn’t really solve anything.

“With all the emphasis that’s been placed on the safety of the game, et cetera, I think it needs to be addressed. Needs to be answered.

“And the other thing, in a very good spirited way, we are gonna look at everything we can do for the visiting team here at the University of Michigan as it relates to a standard of care for the visitors on multiple levels. It’s become apparent after going around to all the visiting schools over the last couple years that [there is] a conscious effort of gamesmanship that is unsportsmanlike. You have locker rooms that are too small; they’re not heated or cooled properly—in this case there’s no air conditioning; such a tight, cramped environment; you’ve got to open the doors to get some kind of ventilation going in a very small area; people are walking by, they’re watching you dress; a number of urinals or bathrooms for the players and staff, I think there was two; there’s not even a private door around it; and then mainly the health and safety of the players. Very small space for a training room to have nothing in it. This is no different than the facility I think I saw when I was there in 1986.

“And not putting this on Purdue, this is league-wide. It needs to be addressed by the league, by the commissioner, and we’re going to lead the way. We’re going to look at what we have, but there needs to be a way to x-ray a player at the stadium. There needs to be a minimum standard of care for the players. Again, we put a lot of emphasis into health and safety of the players, but it doesn’t even seem sanitary. You were all in there. We’ve already talked about the heat, and it seems to be a conscious effort to gamesmanship, to get an advantage over the opponent.

“And I wish I had taken a picture of the actual table that it given to the visitors to put the players on when they’re injured. I mean, it looks like it’s from the ‘20s. It was ripped, it was—it’s just not good. I think that’s a pattern in the Big Ten. I asked Don Brown, ‘Did you see the same thing in the ACC?’ ‘Not to this extent.’ Did not see it to this extent in the Pac 12 when we coached there, and you could keep going on. Injured players who can’t get an x-ray, taken to a student health center in a van, we needed a brace for a player and there wasn’t one at the facility we were taken to. There’s a lot of things that needs to be addressed.

“Talked to Warde [Maneul] about it and I would ask that the rest of the Big Ten coaches look into this as well and make this a priority. We’re talking about all of our players here, and we’ll start first with us and make sure that you have guests, you have visitors that are coming in, that their health and safety needs are being addressed.”

[After THE JUMP: “Gamesmanship should cease at… the point of health and safety for the players.”]

Michigan has recently been looking around for a second quarterback to join Joe Milton in the 2018 class. They got their man last night when three-star St. John's College High (Washington DC) pro-style QB Kevin Doyle announced his commitment. While Doyle had previously been on Michigan's radar, participating in last summer's A4 quarterback camp, interest from the coaches took off over the last few weeks when Doyle got off to an impressive start to his senior season:

Doyle, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound prospect, had offers from Ole Miss, Iowa, Nebraska, Pitt and many others, but had only recently crossed more heavily onto the Michigan radar.

"It came up probably three weeks ago after my game on ESPN," he said. "We played [Concord (Calif.)] De La Salle on September 2nd and it was a tough loss, but we fought hard. Coach [Pep] Hamilton said he was watching the game and told Coach Harbaugh 'we need to re-evaluate this Kevin Doyle, he's a nice player.' They re-watched the film, got in touch and and I got to go up with my teammate Quentin Johnson for the Air Force game. We spent a lot of time together and it was all positive.

"After watching our St. Joseph Regional game -- they're ranked No. 14 in the country -- they started to take more interest in me. They offered me and I decided it was the best place for me."

Doyle is the 14th commit in Michigan's 2018 class.

GURU RATINGS

Scout

Rivals

ESPN

247

247 Comp

3*, #30 P-QB

3* P-QB

4*, 80, #27 P-QB

3*, 88, #15 P-QB,
#390 Ovr

3*, #21 P-QB,
#544 Ovr

Doyle's rankings are in a relatively tight window, as Scout and ESPN give him position ranks around 30th among pro-style QBs and Rivals is likely right there with them (they only rank 30 P-QBs and Doyle has the same 5.6 rating as the #22 P-QB). While ESPN is the service to give Doyle a fourth star, 247 is actually the most bullish, ranking him 15th among P-QBs. On Michigan's commitment list, Doyle slots in between Christian Turner and Sammy Faustin.

All four sites list Doyle at 6'4", 210 pounds, and the scouting reports indicate he has room to pack some muscle onto that frame.